They never planned to take it this far, to the point where they’ve
spent more time as students than teachers.

But nothing has quite turned out as planned for faculty members Barbara
Raudonis, Tom Porter and Rangadhar Dash. Squelched dreams of biology,
baseball and engineering led them to UTA in their own time and their
own way.

Not one of them set out to be an educator, or to be so educated.
It’s only by U-turns that the three earned at least five college
degrees each, more than can hang on an office wall without appearing,
well, showy.

The educators have attended 15 universities in 10 states and two
countries, and they’ve done six years of postdoctoral research.
They have 17 diplomas to show for it all, including four doctorates
and seven master’s degrees.

But in the end, they say, they’re just like anyone else.

“The Ph.D. gets mystified, like you have to
be a genius,” Dr. Raudonis said. “But a lot of it is just
perseverance, being willing to give it some elbow grease.”

And, in her case, deciding what she wanted to do.

A nurse is born

In her homey, phone booth-sized office five floors
up in Pickard Hall, Raudonis seems settled. A nursing assistant professor
with an endearing laugh and an unrelenting passion for end-of-life
care, she has found what she wants to do. It only figures that she’d
be at home in the classroom.

"I didn't set out to get that many pieces of paper,"
says nursing Assistant Professor Barbara Raudonis of her five
academic degrees. "It's just that one thing led to another."

“I always knew I’d go to college,”
she said. But college is one thing, and a degree from a school in every
North American time zone quite another.

Barbara
M. Raudonis
Assistant Professor of Nursing

EDUCATION

B.A., The College of Notre Dame of Maryland,
1974

M.S., University of Maryland at Baltimore, 1978

B.S.N., The Catholic University of
America, 1978

M.S. University of Colorado
Health Sciences Center, 1984

Ph.D., U.T.
Austin, 1991

Postdoctoral fellowship, Oregon Health Sciences University 1991-93

A bachelor’s in biology led Raudonis
to study pathology at the University of Maryland at Baltimore’s
health sciences campus and a weekend job in a hospital microbiology lab.
Studying microbes was ample intellectual reward, she thought, but she
missed people.

So she started in on a more people-oriented bachelor’s
degree. Only months after earning her master’s in pathology, she
graduated with a B.S.N. from The Catholic University of America in Washington,
D.C.

Working with people, though, on a Navajo Indian reservation
on the Arizona-New Mexico border, meant that she missed research. A
second master’s, this one in adult health nursing from the University
of Colorado Health Sciences Center, was the answer.

It let her combine both loves. As an instructor for
two years at Montana State University’s Billings campus, she could
work with people and conduct research.

But in academia, tenured faculty are expected to have
a Ph.D. So she pursued a doctorate at U.T. Austin, then a postdoctoral
fellowship.

Raudonis has worked or studied all over the country.
But Texas struck a chord, and she came back for a faculty spot at TCU.
She moved to UTA in 1997 and, she said, puts every ounce of her education
to use.

“All of my education and research experience
comes together in my nursing career. I use that knowledge in different
ways at different times. All the degrees build on each other. That biology
degree gave me my roots. I don’t feel like any of it has been
a waste of time.

“My career has come full circle. I found something
— nursing — that allows me to do research and also work
with people. I didn’t set out to get that many pieces of paper.
It’s just that one thing led to another.”

Raudonis would like her students to have all the opportunities
she had, so she’s excited about the school’s recently approved
nursing Ph.D. program. She looks forward to chairing dissertation committees
and helping launch the next generation of nurse researchers and educators.

And, just maybe, she could earn another doctorate
herself.

“Never say never,” she said. There’s
that laugh of hers.

“The only thing is, my brother said he’d come to my graduation
in Austin only if that was my last one.”